Libyans have far more immediate challenges to address than trying the late Colonel Muammar Qadhafi’s remaining children for war crimes. Despite this, the cases of Sa’adi Qadhafi (b.1973) and Saif al-Islam Qadhafi (b.1972) still periodically capture the country’s imagination.

Sa’adi Qadhafi has been in Libyan custody at the notorious Habda Prison in Tripoli since the Nigérien government handed him over in 2014. The following year videos circulated depicting Sa’adi reportedly being tortured by his militia captors. He is being held on capital murder charges stemming from his involvement in the 2006 death of the coach of Tripoli’s Al-Ittihad football team. Earlier this month, it was reported that the coach’s family had refused to take blood money from Sa’adi in order to settle the dispute, which means that he could still potentially face the death penalty. Yet, like almost all court cases in Libya, Sa’adi’s was delayed once more last week.

It was also long suspected that Sa’adi’s elder brother, Saif al-Islam, had been living as a free man in Zintan after being captured in late 2011 in south-west Libya — while his convoy was trying to escape to Algeria — by the town’s powerful militias. Many Zintan militias have sided with the Haftar camp since 2014, so it would be unsurprising if Saif al-Islam had been released because leaders in that camp have sought to rehabilitate former Qadhafi regime leaders to positions of power. There were even reports that some Libyans have begun discussing Saif al-Islam as Libya’s possible ruler to help overcome the current political conflict.

The UN has demanded that Saif al-Islam be turned over to The Hague for his war crimes trial. Zintan has held him as its principal bargaining chip with the central government, and has refused to hand him over. In the past year, locals have claimed that he had been released from custody and was living peacefully in the town. Last week, however, the local media insisted that he was still in Zintan custody, albeit under house arrest. If Haftar and his supporters extend their control over more of the country, there could be more concerted efforts in the future to reduce the charges against the Qadhafi brothers, or even lobby for their release.